The Long Tail

“Your new blog is so boring.”

That’s what N thought about my previous blog (let’s call this Blog No. 2). Which was a fair comment as the one before that (Blog No. 1) was quite racy with posts on the groping of testicles (mine by somebody of the opposite sex) and mummified fornicators amongst other things.

I had a good time with Blog No. 1 which attracted comments which were equally raunchy. However, the bawdy comments distracted me from the real tasks at hand which were demonstrating a keen sense of observation and generating clever discussion. This led me to starting Blog No. 2 which covered heavier issues including politics and religion (though once I did spice it up with a post on Fucking*). I noticed I was attracting the attention of a different readership and was quite happy leading the discussions though they were a bit subdued.

So my answer to N should have been: “Because it’s a blog for intelligent people.” But I didn’t say that as she’s a good friend and I knew where she was coming from.

I felt very unmotivated after that as it seemed that I couldn’t please everybody. That was until I read this fantastic book called “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. By the way, Anderson is listed in the Time 100 (a list of the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world).

What is meant by the “Long Tail” is that in the digital age, there is no need to produce, sell or write something that would please everybody. Now any product will find its market as search engines and digital catalogues allow people to look for products which will serve their specific needs. Why this concept is called the “Long Tail” is if a demand curve is plotted for all the goods that are produced in this world there will be a short vertical tail representing goods produced for the masses but a long horizontal tail representing these niche goods.

As I read the book, I got more excited when Anderson discusses the phenomenon of blogs. He contrasts the demand for blogs to other popular media like newspapers and magazines. He argues that blogs do not have to appeal to a mass audience because bloggers could cover very specific topics like “How to rear chipmunks” and still find an audience. If this is left to the mainstream media, niche topics wouldn’t get covered. To cover their huge outlay, they would have to amass enough readership and only offer topics broad enough for mass consumption. Bloggers do not have this problem because most of us do not hope to make any money from blogging (I don’t anyway) and blogging is practically free. Oh, not to forget, Google’s Blog Search will help your audience to find you, wherever you are.

Now, do I really care if anybody says my blog is boring because I am more focused on writing about law and my life as a lawyer? I probably do, but not so much. Anyway do come back for the next post. Because it’s going to be on “10 things that sizzles your sex life but is actually against the law.”

*A small town in Austria.

The secret of my success

“I've finally figured you out,” says Mr. D over a cup of coffee at the Colonial Cup café which used to be a popular lawyers’ haunt before the courts moved to Jalan Duta.

Mr. D was formerly a litigator in my old firm before he moved to better things. He has now gone into management consulting. Even if he had started a nasi lemak stall I would have said the same.

“What have you figured out about me?” I asked, not really looking forward to his revelation.

“Well, I know you from student days and I know for a fact that you never really liked studying law as a subject. And when we meet up now and I mention any current legal issues, you never seem to add to the discussion,” Mr. D went on.

I was not sure I liked where this was heading but I was still interested to find out anyway.

“I thought that you just didn’t like to bore us with the stuff. But actually you don’t know much law, do you?”

“Excuse me?!”

“No, I mean it in a nice way. In fact it amazes me that you have got this far. You do get referred by clients and our former bosses seem to have a high regard for you.”

“Is there a compliment in there?”

“Don’t you see? Your ability to bullshit makes up for all your lack of knowledge. I’ve seen you arguing a case with just one case from a first year text book and as painful as it was, you did get the judge’s ear.”

In my mind I was agreeing with him. When I applied to law school, I really didn’t know what I was in for. Then I listened to my uncle who advised me that if you are unsure about what you want to do, just study law and it will sort itself out later. One legal career later, I’m still unsure whether this is for me. I do churn out case winning submissions every now and then but I’m not sure whether it’s due to real legal knowledge or just the ability to mash-up half a dozen obscure legal propositions (researched by my assistants) and fashion them to win my arguments. I suspect that most of the time I seem more impressive than other Malay lawyers just because I could string sentences in English without any obvious grammatical errors.

“So you are saying that my most redeeming feature is that I can bluff my way through legal practice?”

“Yeah. And I promise I won’t tell your clients.”

I’d better pick up the tab for the coffee then.

U da bomb!

“We’ve got to clear out. There’s a bomb threat,” said S, the lawyer waiting with me for our cases to be called.

I was going to defend a minority shareholder's oppression action before the judge in chambers and had spent the whole week to prepare for the hearing. This cannot be happening. What happens usually is I have back-to-back trials and hearings and my oral submissions usually get the all-nighter treatment. My fervent wish during these anxious moments is usually that I hope the court house gets burned down / bombed / flooded / visited by the Chief Justice to warrant an untimely but welcome adjournment.

But not this morning when I poured my heart and soul into my brilliant submissions, if I may say so myself. I found a 19th century case, not overruled yet, which clearly supports my proposition that shareholder cannot claim that he’s oppressed just because the directors are arseholes (or something to that effect) and I was looking forward to astound my opponents with my resourcefulness.

So we had to go down and gather outside the court complex and wait for instructions. I swear as I went down the lift some of the lawyers were smiling, almost rejoicing at this incident.

I met R, a friend outside. He said, “I wonder which idiot called the bomb squad just to get an adjounrment?”

I replied, “Must have been a desperate bugger.”

Well, let’s add that to the list of “Funky ways to have your trial / hearing adjourned”, which already includes telling the court:

“I can’t remember the combination to my briefcase.”
“My car got broken into and the thief stole my files.” (it’s advisable to support this with a police report).
“My witness refuses to come so I have to issue a subpoena.” (better if the witness is willing to share the RM100 witness allowance with you).
“I have to appear in the Court of Appeal” (can be used only if somebody else in the firm has such an appearance in case the judge wants to see the letter from the Court of Appeal).
“I have severe diarrhea (and I really don’t want to have to prove it to Your Lordship).”
“My client wants to propose a settlement.” (not so funky but judges always look forward to the prospect of settlement to avoid listening to submissions)

Anyway, that was this morning. The case got called again at 2.30 p.m. and the judge told us he didn’t have time to hear it. It got adjourned till 2 months later.

Now I’ve got to prepare for this bloody injunction hearing tomorrow morning which my former legal assistant just dumped on me before he left. I can’t make sense of anything said in these affidavits.

I wonder if Google can find me the bomb squad’s number?

The "Rogue Lawyer" explained

So why “Rogue Lawyer”?

No special reason really. I thought it just makes me ‘badder’ than I really am. I don’t think I’m any more unethical than the next lawyer (which is not saying a lot, you might say).

I know this sounds self-serving and oxymoronic but I think I am an honest lawyer. Despite oft-quoted stories of lawyers running off with their clients’ money, it really is not fair to tar every lawyer with the same brush. I would say that absconding with other people’s money is more of a human thing rather than a lawyer thing. You will easily find that the same misdeeds are capable of being performed by directors of public listed companies and bank tellers.

But what I mean by roguish behaviour will be in the way I tell my stories. I can already see that I will be breaking so many rules of ethics just by having this blog. I am reminded already of Rule 47 of the Legal Profession (Practice and Etiquette) Rules 1978 which states that “An advocate and solicitor shall not give an interview or supply information to the press concerning his life, practice or earnings at the Bar.” I can certainly say that any member of the press would not be even remotely interested in interviewing me. But blogging about my life and practice (though never about my miserable earnings, I can assure you that) as an advocate and solicitor would arguably be in the same spirit and could subject me to sanctions.

I’ve always thought that an upside (read: consolation) of practising law is that one is often entertained by the peculiar and bizarre conduct of clients and lawyers alike. And I haven’t even started on the judges yet.

I remember once in an ethics lecture long ago that the rationale of Rule 47 is that being in an honourable profession, one shouldn’t try to get extra publicity by promoting oneself in the media. It would be demeaning to rest of us if we had to resort to publicity to promote our practices, the lecturer said.

I suspect that it’s nothing to do with that and it’s just that lawyers don’t want the embarrassing behaviour of their brethren to be recounted publicly. It’s just not on for the senior partners of a very established firm to read about how their legal assistants regard the best perk of their job is the firm’s bar (I mean this in the popular sense of the word) on the 5th floor.

Thank God for this blog then. Now if you’d excuse me I’ve got to help out my hot female chambering student with her research. Hmm… looks like this is going to be a long night.

The First Post

Welcome to my blog. It's not a blawg as some blogging lawyers fondly ( and quite cheesily) call theirs. Just because I'm a lawyer it doesn't mean I have to blog about law stuff all the time right?

Why this blog then?

To be honest, I'm not what you'd call a novice blogger. I've had 2 blogs before to my name (not sure that's the correct expression to use since they were anonymous blogs too). But there was something missing before. I think I could attribute it to the fact that I wasn't able to really explore my lawyer personality out of a (misplaced?) desire to protect my identity.

As a result, I was talking about everything else but my work which left me feeling quite unfulfilled. It's not like I have such an interesting job (I'm a civil litigator by the way) but my identity is so intricately woven into my chosen (by this, I don't mean I chose it - more of that later) profession. It doesn't make any sense ignoring it.

Maybe this blog ain't gonna be much different from my other former blogs. Maybe you'll still be treated to the same crap. But perhaps you will get to know this other significant side of me.

Hope this one sticks!